ORLANDO, Fla. — When Callaway introduced its Jailbreak technology to its clubs a couple of years ago, the golf industry was buzzing.

Fast forward to 2019 and there’s still a buzz within the walls of golf’s Super Bowl — the PGA Merchandise Show. First came the Epic driver in 2017, then it was the Rogue a year ago, now it’s the Epic Flash. When your clubs are delivering increased ball speed and distance off the tee, it’s not surprising that sales are so strong.

“Jailbreak technology has been incredible,” said Callaway Canada’s GM Bruce Carroll. “Once our R and D team realized that by putting those two bars in and using them as tie rods to hold the crown and sole together so they don’t separate at impact, it kept the energy on the face of the golf club instead of losing energy. We know Jailbreak works. We’ve been the longest, fastest ball speed driver ever since.”

The Flash is an incredible story on its own — it was put together by artificial intelligence.

“It’s the first consumer product we know of that’s actually made with artificial intelligence,” said Carroll. “If we were to make a driver, we do maybe four to five iterations of that driver — that whole process takes about six months. We make it, test it, make it, test it. We basically asked the super computer to make a face where every contact point has the fastest ball speed possible. It self learns. If it made a spot in the heel faster, then figured out it made a spot in the toe slower … it kept self learning. There were 15,000 iterations in six weeks.

“With all the waves, it’s totally different than anything we’ve made. We have durability in the middle, but we also have speed. The thinnest part of the face is actually right in the middle. We’ve never done that before. The technology is incredible.”

The irons are also getting a tuneup.

“With the Apex irons, we launched CF 16 in July of 2015 — we were the first company to come out with a true forged body with our cup face technology. It was a huge success. We planned on doing a two-year life cycle, but when it was time to come out with a new iron, we couldn’t kill it, the old one was still going so well. Apex is just now coming to the market to replace an iron we launched in 2015. That’s pretty amazing.”

Callaway is a company that continues to push ahead, with a strong vision for the future.

“Since Chip (Brewer) took over (six years ago), the mandate has been to take off the handcuffs and let’s make the best product in the world,” said Carroll. “That’s what’s happened.”

While the Rogue tested new limits, the Epic Flash is taking them further.

“The Rogue driver is obviously excellent, but is Flash faster? Yes,” Carroll said. “Rogue is a more stretched back driver, it’s higher MOI (moment of inertia). For the person who likes that driver, he’s still going to be happy. For the guy who wants a different shape, not nearly as stretched from front to back, Epic Flash is going to appeal more to them. I don’t know many people who are going to turn down more ball speed.”

“Everything we’ve acquired, the thought is can we add value or can it add value to us?” Carroll said. “Ogio in Canada didn’t have an organized sales team — there was no sales presence. This was an example where we could leverage Ogio with a worldwide salesperson. Let’s talk social media. If you added up all the followers that were ambassadors Ogio had versus our ambassadors for Callaway, Ogio has way more. We were shocked at the brand awareness of Ogio. It adds value to us.”

Loudmouth’s Woody Woodworth is interviewed at the PGA Merchandise Show in Orlando.Tim Baines /
Postmedia

LOUD IS FUN: I’ve got to admit, I always like taking an advance peek into what colourful splashes Loudmouth has on the way in its collection of pants. Among the designs soon on the market are Magic Bus, Bambooz, Broad Strokes, Loudmouth Soup, Golf Camo, Baker’s Dozen (yep, colourful donuts), Blasterpiece, Skull Grotto, Eye Candy, Lawbstiz (with that Boston accent) and an awesome Canadian design called Canuck (included are a moose head, maple syrup, skates, a beaver, a maple leaf, a bear and the CN Tower).

The company has come a long way since founder Woody Woodworth designed a pair of pants with a lot of Looney Tunes characters on them, creating clothes that cry out with fun and mischief in mind.

“Famous people like Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs didn’t want clothing to take up any portion of their thought so they wore the same thing every day,” Woodworth said. “Good. They brought us Macintosh computers and Facebook. Remember what it was like being in fourth or fifth grade? You wanted to conform, no one wanted to get singled out. But now we’re adults, we can do whatever we want.”

Loudmouth also has a partnerships with New Era for hats and Etonic for shoes.

RICKIE WEARING 2UNDR: Earlier this week, 2UNDR announced a five-year deal with PGA star Rickie Fowler. It was huge news and part of a terrific success story for the underwear company, which is based in Vancouver.

Speaking about the agreement with Fowler, 2UNDR president and co-founder Dave Williams said, “It’s totally a big deal for us. There’s instant credibility for what we’re doing. He’s been buying the underwear for three years now. I met him when he was with Butch Harmon on the range one day. He was all over it.”

Getting into pro shops wasn’t easy for 2UNDR in the initial stages.

“We heard a lot of nos before people realized that underwear could be sold in pro shops,” said Williams. “The pros would say, ‘Look, we can’t sell underwear, we have women coming into the shop.’ We almost told them, ‘Women buy 70 per cent of the underwear men wear so it’s not like they don’t know what’s going on.’ ”

So why the success story? What’s the underwear got going for it?

“We’ve created a new experience for men in terms of management of their assets,” Williams said. “It’s our Joey Pouch technology, lifting and separating and eliminating skin-on-skin contact. It’s the fabrics we use, they are super comfortable. On top of that, it’s our packaging and marketing materials; we don’t take ourselves too seriously. If you have a good product and people like it, they want to tell people about it.”

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